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Landscaped or freestyle?

Mith

Mith

The Eccentric Englishman
Seems our garden back here fits into the freestyle catagory :D

Do any of you have a landscaped garden? Was it done professionally or did you do it yourself? Does it have a theme, Japanese, Herb garden?
And now a great chance to use this smiley --> :weneedpic
Is your garden of the weeded variety, or the weedy variety :whistle:
Thanks
 

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I'd say that mine is freestyle with elements of landscaping to dress it up a bit, but not very much. Our house is very informal and our land maintains that informality. The house has Japanese influences, it is a Prairie design, and was designed in 1912 by an acrhitect named Walter Burley Griffin, who became very influential in Australia. As you look at the photos you will see formal peonies mixed with perenial woodland geraniums at the top of the stone path that leads throught the woods, landcsaped areas are all freeform and compliment the woodlands that abut our house on 2 sides, lawn on the other two sides are broken up by informal plantings. Even in the snow photos you can see the informal shapes of some of the plantings.
 

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Mith, that garden is beautiful! Is that a recent picture or was it taken during the spring?
Bob, you have a beautiful place there. Why do you need a snowplow? Looks like someone else did it for you! :D
I guess you would have to call my "garden" natural as the property is forest with a lawn and a couple of trees we planted. Come springtime, we have big plans for planting several trees and shrubs, although the way the weather has been going, I don't know if spring will ever come around.
This is the most recent picture I have of the back of the house. Our property goes on for a ways on all sides but it is mostly soggy forest at this time.
Bonehead
 

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I need to know how to landscape around my new wood heat source. You all know that natural gas prices have really gone up. I never really like that cc wood stove, so I came up with a whole house answer to help save on utility bills. How would I landscape around this?

I know, it's not quit as nice as Bob's place but I intend to spruce it up and make him green with envy.

P.S. I did all the work myself. I think I may take up carpentry and engineering now. There ain't nuthing to doing this stuff! :thumb:
 

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Dargo, I'd say you have a good eye; the juxtapostion of the stove pipe with the ductwork appears to make a right angle, thus establishing a certain symetry. The natural rust color of the furnace compliments the green of the van; I think it's fine as a stand-alomne statement, and wouldn't detract from it with dumb plants that drop leaves and stuff.
 
Bone - for a nurses aide ... errr... Para . . . EMT - you've got a really fancy place especially considering where you live! Does your wife work too or are you pulling in major overtime?

Bob, we have the same driveway. Have you re-coated it yet? If you have any recommendations please let me know as that is one of the projects for this summer.

Nice try Dargo - I bet you've got something a little fancier.

My place will be Freestyle. I re-did the main lawns last year and had 55 large Douglas Firs pulled out by an excavator so I still have some clean-up to do. I've probably planted 500 or more trees and have 100-200 more in the nursery waiting to go in. I'm not posting pictures 'cause it's still a bit of a destruction zone.
 
Nice places guys. Beautiful lawn Mith. Makes me yearn for spring and green grass again. Won't be long!
Bob, your place does not look 'informal'. It looks very nice. I like the lines.
BH what a house. HUGE! What a presence. And this is on an Island? Awesome.
Why would you think Dargo is pulling our leg PB? It's a quaint little place. Do you think that's how he buys all his toys, by keeping a modest home? :D
 
Doc said:
Nice places guys. Beautiful lawn Mith. Makes me yearn for spring and green grass again. Won't be long!
Bob, your place does not look 'informal'. It looks very nice. I like the lines.
BH what a house. HUGE! What a presence. And this is on an Island? Awesome.
Why would you think Dargo is pulling our leg PB? It's a quaint little place. Do you think that's how he buys all his toys, by keeping a modest home? :D
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Gopd piont Doc! Some people choose to have a small home & thats just how they want it. A friend of mine has a home a few miles from here that is small, about half the size of mine & he has triple the money that I have in the bank & thats the way he likes it.
 
Doc said:
Nice places guys. Beautiful lawn Mith. Makes me yearn for spring and green grass again. Won't be long!
Bob, your place does not look 'informal'. It looks very nice. I like the lines.
BH what a house. HUGE! What a presence. And this is on an Island? Awesome.
Why would you think Dargo is pulling our leg PB? It's a quaint little place. Do you think that's how he buys all his toys, by keeping a modest home? :D
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Good piont Doc! A friend of mine has a home that is half the size of mine yet he has triple the money in the bank that I have & thats exactly how he likes it. Everyone spends there money differently.
 
PBinWA said:
Bob, we have the same driveway. Have you re-coated it yet? If you have any recommendations please let me know as that is one of the projects for this summer.
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My drive was build in 3 phases. First they put in a good gravel drive that was cut about 10" deep into the clay soil we have, we used that for about 6 months after the house was built to make sure it was stable and compacted. Then we had it asphalted with 2 layers of asphalt. After 3 years we had it coated with a liquid sealer. After 3 more years I had another 2 inch layer of asphalt put over the the surface. There was nothing wrong with the driveway prior to the resurfacing but at 6 years old it was getting some surface cracks.

The key with an asphalt driveway is good drainage. You can probably tell mine is cut through a slope so I get some water draining over the surface, I also have a drain pipe under it at the curve with a small drain in the grass at a slow spot so water doesn't migrate under the driveway which has a clay base under the gravel. Clay is horrible for building roads on because water can undermine the structure in a year or two if there is bad drainage. One of the neighbors down the road lost about 40% of his driveway in less than a year because he hired a cut rate crew who just asphalted over some gravel without dealing with drainage. My next door neighbor put in a driveway but the crew didn't deal wiht his drainage. He ended up renting a tractor and trencher to install drain tiles along the drive and to create a ditch for waterflow.
 
You guys have some nice looking places. And I really like the ambience at Dargo's. Hey Brent, how long did it take to achieve that look?:yum:

I don't have photos of my yardscape right now, besides everything is sorta gloomy out there, with it being winter. Man! I wish we had some snow!!

My upnorth property is "freestyle", for lack of a better term. I only have a very small amount of it cleared around 3 sides of the house, the rest is whatever ma nature wants it to look like. I do have a bunch of poppels that I'd like to be rid of, or at least thin them out somewhat.

I do have plans to build a fountain somewhat on the lines Bob did, but with a twist or 2 thrown in, and a small gazebo like structure to sit and and view the fountain.

Out in the back, I've got a clearing where a sawmill used to be, and would like to dig a small pond there. The wetlands that abut this area are a haven for critters. I really hate to deal with the DNR on this, but withem overflying the area all the time, it may be less expensive to get their "permission", than pay the fine.:tiphat::beer:
 

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Thanks for the comments, I think that picture was taken last spring, but maybe the spring before. In winter, like now, the lawn is just mud really, grows back though.

As far as I can tell the land used to be fully wooded, in my lifetime atleast many many trees have gone, the big fir in the middle of the picture is no longer there for example.

Bob and Bone, your houses are MASSIVE!

That path looks nice Bob, what kind of stone is it?

John, how dya get ya lawn to grow white? :D
 
Mith said:
That path looks nice Bob, what kind of stone is it?
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The main body of the path is limestone, the pieces are about 3" thick and actually form a staircase that goes down the slope. Pea gravel fills in the gaps between the limestone slabs. On either side of the limestone slabs are granite cobblestones. The limestone portion of the path is roughly 36" wide, the cobbles add roughly another 12" of width to each side, their purpose is to allow for drainage. Due to the slope, all you can actually see clearly is the top landing. The path is actually a series of steps and landings. There are 3 to 4 steps, then a small landing, then 3 or 4 more steps, then another landing, etc down a slope that is roughly a 12' drop in grade.
 
B_Skurka said:
Due to the slope, all you can actually see clearly is the top landing.
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Here's a better picture of Bob's path through the woods. :yum:
 

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Dave, in that photo you can also see a portion of the 'bluestone' path that runs along the edge of the woods. But it doesn't look blue in that photo. Personally I like the bluestone to walk on better than the limestone. The bluestone was tumbled to soften the edges and is easy to walk on barefoot.
 
John, how dya get ya lawn to grow white? :D[/QUOTE]

Jim, Like I said, I let ma nature do her thing! Thats only about 1' of snow. I took that photo last winter, I think it was.:yum::tiphat::beer:
 
Kubota King said:
That is one of the blury area's on that google earth site. I love that site & spend about 30 minutes a day on it!
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Actually....Bob is in one of the medium/high resolution areas.

My property on the other hand is just a big green & brown smudge.

The first picture is from Google Earth, the second is from TerraFly.
 

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Yeah, I'm on that "remain anonymous" program as well. About 1/2 mile from my house the Google earth site just goes all blurry. I just live in a greenish, bluish blob of an area.
 
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